An Akwa Ibom State High Court presided over by Justice Okon Okon has sentenced one Monday Okon, 36, to death for kidnapping a three-year-old girl at the Mbierebe Obio community in the Ibesikpo Asutan Local Government Area of the state.
Monday, a native of Ekpene Ikpan in the Nsit Ibom Local Government Area of the state, was convicted for kidnapping and conspiracy.
The convict was sentenced alongside one Cecilia Ebong, who assisted him to hold the child inside a tricycle they boarded to the AKTC Park, where she was to be conveyed to Aba, Abia State, to a standby buyer.
He confessed to the police that he kidnapped the pupil on July 20, 2018 during a graduation party in the school and kept her in his house in Ibesikpo Asutan for three days until his wife advised him to return the girl to where he picked her from, but that the advice fell on his deaf ears.
Luck, however, ran out on the convicts on July 24, 2017, while on their way to the AKTC Park, a good Samaritan saw the child covered with a cloth in a tricycle and raised the alarm on the Aka Road-IBB roundabout in Uyo, leading to their arrest.
Ebong, however, claimed to be the grandmother of the victim.
Monday confessed that he was to deliver the child to a 42-year-old woman, Charity Nwachukwu, who he claimed he had previously sold a male child to in 2017 and got N50,000 for the transaction.
Delivering judgment on Thursday, Justice Okon sentenced Monday to death by hanging, while Ebong was sentenced to five years in prison.
The judge said, “It is unfortunate and depressing that people still indulge in callous trade of human beings, particularly children, despite efforts of the government to stem the ugly trend.
“The recourse to child buying and selling is appalling and indefensible, and no punishment will be excessive to deter people from such tendency.”
The Punch
